Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on operations overseas, FBI is primarily a domestic security agency. The bureau has fifty-six field offices located in major cities throughout the United States, and more than 400 resident agencies in lesser cities and areas across the nation. Despite its domestic focus, FBI does maintain a significant international footprint, operating 60 Legal Attache (LEGAT) offices and 15 sub-offices in U.S. embassies and consulates across the globe. These overseas offices exist primarily for the purpose of coordination with foreign intelligence and security services and not ordinarily conduct unilateral intelligence or counterintelligence activities in the host countries.[4]

Budget, mission and priorities

In the fiscal year 2012, the bureau's total budget was approximately $8.12 billion.[5]

The FBI's main goal is to protect and defend the United States, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners.[3]

Indian reservations

The federal government has the primary responsibility for investigating[8] and prosecuting serious crime on Indian reservations.[9]

There are 565 federally recognized American Indian Tribes in the United States, and the FBI has federal law enforcement responsibility on nearly 200 Indian reservations. This federal jurisdiction is shared concurrently with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of Justice Services (BIA-OJS).

Located within the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, the Indian Country Crimes Unit (ICCU) is responsible for developing and implementing strategies, programs, and policies to address identified crime problems in Indian Country (IC) for which the FBI has responsibility.

The FBI does not specifically list crimes in Native American land as one of its priorities.[11] Often serious crimes have been either poorly investigated or prosecution has been declined. Tribal courts can only impose sentences of up to three years, and then under certain restrictions.[12][13]

Legal authority

The FBI's mandate is established in Title 28 of the United States Code (U.S. Code), Section 533, which authorizes the Attorney General to "appoint officials to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States."[14] Other federal statutes give the FBI the authority and responsibility to investigate specific crimes.

The USA PATRIOT Act increased the powers allotted to the FBI, especially in wiretapping and monitoring of Internet activity. One of the most controversial provisions of the act is the so-called sneak and peek provision, granting the FBI powers to search a house while the residents are away, and not requiring them to notify the residents for several weeks afterwards. Under the PATRIOT Act's provisions, the FBI also resumed inquiring into the library records[15] of those who are suspected of terrorism (something it had supposedly not done since the 1970s).

In the early 1980s, Senate hearings were held to examine FBI undercover operations in the wake of the Abscam controversy, which had allegations of entrapment of elected officials. As a result, in following years a number of guidelines were issued to constrain FBI activities.

A March 2007 report by the inspector general of the Justice Department described the FBI's "widespread and serious misuse" of national security letters, a form of administrative subpoena used to demand records and data pertaining to individuals. The report said that between 2003 and 2005, the FBI had issued more than 140,000 national security letters, many involving people with no obvious connections to terrorism.[16]

Information obtained through an FBI investigation is presented to the appropriate U.S. Attorney or Department of Justice official, who decides if prosecution or other action is warranted.

Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including the Secret Service, for personnel, investigators in particular. On May 27, 1908, Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by the Justice Department, citing fears that the new agency would serve as a secret police.[20] Again at Roosevelt's urging, Bonaparte moved to organize a formal bureau of investigation with its own staff of special agents.[18]

Creation

The Bureau of Investigation (BOI) was created on July 26, 1908, after Congress had adjourned for the summer.[18] Attorney General Bonaparte, using Department of Justice expense funds,[18] hired thirty-four people, including some veterans of the Secret Service,[21][22] to work for a new investigative agency. Its first chief (the title is now known as director) was Stanley Finch. Bonaparte notified Congress of these actions in December, 1908.[18]

The bureau's first official task was visiting and making surveys of the houses of prostitution in preparation for enforcing the "White Slave Traffic Act," or Mann Act, passed on June 25, 1910. In 1932, it was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation. The following year it was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition and rechristened the Division of Investigation (DOI) before finally becoming an independent service within the Department of Justice in 1935.[21] In the same year, its name was officially changed from the Division of Investigation to the present-day Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI.

John Edgar Hoover as director

The Director of the BOI, John Edgar Hoover, was an FBI Director who served from 1924–1972, a combined 48 years with the BOI, DOI, and FBI. He was chiefly responsible for creating the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, or the FBI Laboratory, which officially opened in 1932, as part of his work to professionalize investigations by the government. Hoover was substantially involved in most major cases and projects that the FBI handled during his tenure. After Hoover's death, Congress passed legislation that limited the tenure of future FBI Directors to ten years.

Other activities of its early decades included a decisive role in reducing the scope and influence of the Ku Klux Klan. Additionally, through the work of Edwin Atherton, the FBI claimed success in apprehending an entire army of Mexican neo-revolutionaries along the California border in the 1920s.

Hoover began using wiretapping in the 1920s during Prohibition to arrest bootleggers.[23] In the 1927 case Olmstead v. United States, in which a bootlegger was caught through telephone tapping, the United States Supreme Court ruled that FBI wiretaps did not violate the Fourth Amendment as unlawful search and seizure, as long as the FBI did not break into a person's home to complete the tapping.[23] After Prohibition's repeal, Congress passed the Communications Act of 1934, which outlawed non-consensual phone tapping, but allowed bugging.[23] In the 1939 case Nardone v. United States, the court ruled that due to the 1934 law, evidence the FBI obtained by phone tapping was inadmissible in court.[23] After the 1967 case Katz v. United States overturned the 1927 case that had allowed bugging, Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control Act, allowing public authorities to tap telephones during investigations as long as they obtain a warrant beforehand.[23]

National security

Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1970s, the bureau investigated cases of espionage against the United States and its allies. Eight Nazi agents who had planned sabotage operations against American targets were arrested, and six were executed (Ex parte Quirin) under their sentences. Also during this time, a joint US/UK code-breaking effort (the Venona project)—with which the FBI was heavily involved—broke Soviet diplomatic and intelligence communications codes, allowing the US and British governments to read Soviet communications. This effort confirmed the existence of Americans working in the United States for Soviet intelligence.[24] Hoover was administering this project but failed to notify the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until 1952. Another notable case is the arrest of Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in 1957.[25] The discovery of Soviet spies operating in the US allowed Hoover to pursue his longstanding obsession with the threat he perceived from the American Left, ranging from Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) union organizers to American liberals.

Japanese American internment

In 1939, the Bureau began compiling a custodial detention list with the names of those who would be taken into custody in the event of war with Axis nations. The majority of the names on the list belonged to Issei community leaders, as the FBI investigation built on an existing Naval Intelligence index that had focused on Japanese Americans in Hawaii and the West Coast, but many German and Italian nationals also found their way onto the secret list.[26] Robert Shivers, head of the Honolulu office, obtained permission from Hoover to start detaining those on the list on December 7, 1941, while bombs were still falling over Pearl Harbor.[27] Mass arrests and searches of homes (in most cases conducted without warrants) began a few hours after the attack, and over the next several weeks more than 5,500 Issei men were taken into FBI custody.[28] On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. FBI Director Hoover opposed the subsequent mass removal and confinement of Japanese Americans authorized under Executive Order 9066, but Roosevelt prevailed.[29] The vast majority went along with the subsequent exclusion orders, but in a handful of cases where Japanese Americans refused to obey the new military regulations, FBI agents handled their arrests.[27] The Bureau continued surveillance on Japanese Americans throughout the war, conducting background checks on applicants for resettlement outside camp, and entering the camps (usually without the permission of War Relocation Authority officials) and grooming informants in order to monitor dissidents and "troublemakers." After the war, the FBI was assigned to protect returning Japanese Americans from attacks by hostile white communities.[27]

Civil-rights movement

During the 1950s and 1960s, FBI officials became increasingly concerned about the influence of civil rights leaders, whom they believed had communist ties or were unduly influenced by them. In 1956, for example, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of George W. Lee, Emmett Till, and other blacks in the South.[30] The FBI carried out controversial domestic surveillance in an operation it called the COINTELPRO, which was short for "COunter-INTELligence PROgram."[31] It was to investigate and disrupt the activities of dissident political organizations within the United States, including both militant and non-violent organizations. Among its targets was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a leading civil rights organization with clergy leadership.[32]

The so-called "suicide letter",[33] mailed anonymously to King by the FBI

The FBI frequently investigated Martin Luther King, Jr. In the mid-1960s, King began publicly criticizing the Bureau for giving insufficient attention to the use of terrorism by white supremacists. Hoover responded by publicly calling King the most "notorious liar" in the United States.[34] In his 1991 memoir, Washington Post journalist Carl Rowan asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide.[35] Historian Taylor Branch documents an anonymous November 1964 "suicide package" sent by the Bureau that combined a letter to the civil rights leader telling him "You are done. There is only one way out for you..." with audio recordings of King's sexual indiscretions.[36]

In March 1971, the residential office of an FBI agent in Media, Pennsylvania was burglarized by a group calling itself the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI. Numerous files were taken and distributed to a range of newspapers, including The Harvard Crimson.[37] The files detailed the FBI's extensive COINTELPRO program, which included investigations into lives of ordinary citizens—including a black student group at a Pennsylvania military college and the daughter of Congressman Henry Reuss of Wisconsin.[37] The country was "jolted" by the revelations, which included assassinations of political activists, and the actions were denounced by members of Congress, including House Majority Leader Hale Boggs.[37] The phones of some members of Congress, including Boggs, had allegedly been tapped.[37]

Kennedy's assassination

When President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed, the jurisdiction fell to the local police departments until President Lyndon B. Johnson directed the FBI to take over the investigation.[38] To ensure clarity about responsibility for investigation of homicides of federal officials, Congress passed a law that put investigations of deaths of federal officials within FBI jurisdiction.

Organized crime

In response to organized crime, on August 25, 1953, the FBI created the Top Hoodlum Program. The national office directed field offices to gather information on mobsters in their territories and to report it regularly to Washington for a centralized collection of intelligence on racketeers.[39] After the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO Act, took effect, the FBI began investigating the former Prohibition-organized groups, which had become fronts for crime in major cities and small towns. All of the FBI work was done undercover and from within these organizations, using the provisions provided in the RICO Act. Gradually the agency dismantled many of the groups. Although Hoover initially denied the existence of a National Crime Syndicate in the United States, the Bureau later conducted operations against known organized crime syndicates and families, including those headed by Sam Giancana and John Gotti. The RICO Act is still used today for all organized crime and any individuals who might fall under the Act.

In 2003 a congressional committee called the FBI's organized crime informant program "one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement."[40] While protecting an informant in March 1965, the FBI allowed four innocent men to be convicted of murder. Three of the men were sentenced to death (which was later reduced to life in prison). The fourth defendant was sentenced to life in prison, where he spent three decades.[40] In July 2007, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston found the bureau helped convict the four men of the March 1965 gangland murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan. The U.S. Government was ordered to pay $100 million in damages to the four defendants.[41]

Notable post-Hoover reorganizations

Special FBI teams

In 1982, the FBI formed an elite unit[42] to help with problems that might arise at the 1984 Summer Olympics to be held in Los Angeles, particularly terrorism and major-crime. This was a result of the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, Germany, when terrorists murdered the Israeli athletes. Named Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), it acts as the FBI lead for a national SWAT team in related procedures and all counter-terrorism cases. Also formed in 1984 was the Computer Analysis and Response Team (CART).[43]

From the end of the 1980s to the early 1990s, the FBI reassigned more than 300 agents from foreign counter-intelligence duties to violent crime, and made violent crime the sixth national priority. With reduced cuts to other well-established departments, and because terrorism was no longer considered a threat after the end of the Cold War,[43] the FBI assisted local police forces in tracking fugitives who had crossed state lines, a felony. The FBI Laboratory helped develop DNA testing, continuing its pioneering role in identification that began with its fingerprinting system in 1924.

After Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA, 1994), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA, 1996), and the Economic Espionage Act (EEA, 1996), the FBI followed suit and underwent a technological upgrade in 1998, just as it did with its CART team in 1991. Computer Investigations and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center (CITAC) and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) were created to deal with the increase in Internet-related problems, such as computer viruses, worms, and other malicious programs that threatened US operations. With these developments, the FBI increased its electronic surveillance in public safety and national security investigations, adapting to the telecommunications advancements that changed the nature of such problems.

September 11th attacks

Within months of the September 11 attacks in 2001, FBI Director Robert Mueller, who had been sworn in a week before the attacks, called for a re-engineering of FBI structure and operations. He made countering every federal crime a top priority, including the prevention of terrorism, countering foreign intelligence operations, addressing cyber security threats, other high-tech crimes, protecting civil rights, combating public corruption, organized crime, white-collar crime, and major acts of violent crime.[46]

In February 2001, Robert Hanssen was caught selling information to the Russian government. It was later learned that Hanssen, who had reached a high position within the FBI, had been selling intelligence since as early as 1979. He pleaded guilty to treason and received a life sentence in 2002, but the incident led many to question the security practices employed by the FBI. There was also a claim that Robert Hanssen might have contributed information that led to the September 11, 2001 attacks.[47]

The 9/11 Commission's final report on July 22, 2004 stated that the FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were both partially to blame for not pursuing intelligence reports that could have prevented the September 11, 2001 attacks. In its most damning assessment, the report concluded that the country had "not been well served" by either agency and listed numerous recommendations for changes within the FBI.[48] While the FBI has acceded to most of the recommendations, including oversight by the new Director of National Intelligence, some former members of the 9/11 Commission publicly criticized the FBI in October 2005, claiming it was resisting any meaningful changes.[49]

On July 8, 2007 The Washington Post published excerpts from UCLA Professor Amy Zegart's book Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11.[50] The Post reported from Zegart's book that government documents show the CIA and FBI missed 23 potential chances to disrupt the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The primary reasons for the failures included: agency cultures resistant to change and new ideas; inappropriate incentives for promotion; and a lack of cooperation between the FBI, CIA and the rest of the United States Intelligence Community. The book blamed the FBI's decentralized structure, which prevented effective communication and cooperation among different FBI offices. The book suggested that the FBI has not evolved into an effective counter-terrorism or counter-intelligence agency, due in large part to deeply ingrained agency cultural resistance to change. For example, FBI personnel practices continue to treat all staff other than special agents as support staff, classifying intelligence analysts alongside the FBI's auto mechanics and janitors.[51]

Faulty bullet analysis

For over 40 years, the FBI crime lab in Quantico believed lead in bullets had unique chemical signatures. It analyzed the bullets with the goal of matching them chemically, not only to a single batch of ammunition coming out of a factory, but also to a single box of bullets. The National Academy of Sciences conducted an 18-month independent review of comparative bullet-lead analysis. In 2003, its National Research Council published a report whose conclusions called into question 30 years of FBI testimony. It found the analytic model used by the FBI for interpreting results was deeply flawed, and the conclusion, that bullet fragments could be matched to a box of ammunition, was so overstated that it was misleading under the rules of evidence. One year later, the FBI decided to stop doing bullet lead analysis.[52]

After a 60 Minutes/Washington Post investigation in November 2007 (two years later), the bureau agreed to identify, review, and release all pertinent cases, and notify prosecutors about cases in which faulty testimony was given.[53]

Organization

Organizational structure

Organization chart for the FBI as of January 20, 2010

The FBI is organized into functional branches and the Office of the Director, which contains most administrative offices. An executive assistant director manages each branch. Each branch is then divided into offices and divisions, each headed by an assistant director. The various divisions are further divided into sub-branches, led by deputy assistant directors. Within these sub-branches there are various sections headed by section chiefs. Section chiefs are ranked analogous to special agents in charge.

Three of the branches report to the deputy director while two report to the associate director. The functions branches of the FBI are:

The Office of the Director serves as the central administrative organ of the FBI. The office provide staff support functions (such as finance and facilities management) to the five function branches and the various field divisions. The office is managed by the FBI associate director, who also oversees the operations of both the Information and Technology and Human Resources Branches.

According to The Washington Post, the FBI "is building a vast repository controlled by people who work in a top-secret vault on the fourth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington. This one stores the profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime. What they have done is appear to be acting suspiciously to a town sheriff, a traffic cop or even a neighbor."[56]

The FBI Laboratory, established with the formation of the BOI,[58] did not appear in the J. Edgar Hoover Building until its completion in 1974. The lab serves as the primary lab for most DNA, biological, and physical work. Public tours of FBI headquarters ran through the FBI laboratory workspace before the move to the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The services the lab conducts include Chemistry, Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), Computer Analysis and Response, DNA Analysis, Evidence Response, Explosives, Firearms and Tool marks, Forensic Audio, Forensic Video, Image Analysis, Forensic Science Research, Forensic Science Training, Hazardous Materials Response, Investigative and Prospective Graphics, Latent Prints, Materials Analysis, Questioned Documents, Racketeering Records, Special Photographic Analysis, Structural Design, and Trace Evidence.[59] The services of the FBI Laboratory are used by many state, local, and international agencies free of charge. The lab also maintains a second lab at the FBI Academy.

The FBI Academy, located in Quantico, Virginia, is home to the communications and computer laboratory the FBI utilizes. It is also where new agents are sent for training to become FBI Special Agents. Going through the 21-week course is required for every Special Agent.[60] First opened for use in 1972, the facility located on 385 acres (1.6 km2) of woodland. The Academy trains state and local law enforcement agencies, which are invited to the law enforcement training center. The FBI units that reside at Quantico are the Field and Police Training Unit, Firearms Training Unit, Forensic Science Research and Training Center, Technology Services Unit (TSU), Investigative Training Unit, Law Enforcement Communication Unit, Leadership and Management Science Units (LSMU), Physical Training Unit, New Agents' Training Unit (NATU), Practical Applications Unit (PAU), the Investigative Computer Training Unit and the "College of Analytical Studies."

In 2000, the FBI began the Trilogy project to upgrade its outdated information technology (IT) infrastructure. This project, originally scheduled to take three years and cost around $380 million, ended up going far over budget and behind schedule.[61] Efforts to deploy modern computers and networking equipment were generally successful, but attempts to develop new investigation software, outsourced to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), were not. Virtual Case File, or VCF, as the software was known, was plagued by poorly defined goals, and repeated changes in management.[62] In January 2005, more than two years after the software was originally planned for completion, the FBI officially abandoned the project. At least $100 million (and much more by some estimates) was spent on the project, which never became operational. The FBI has been forced to continue using its decade-old Automated Case Support system, which IT experts consider woefully inadequate. In March 2005, the FBI announced it was beginning a new, more ambitious software project, code-named Sentinel, which they expected to complete by 2009.[63]

Carnivore was an electronic eavesdropping software system implemented by the FBI during the Clinton administration; it was designed to monitor email and electronic communications. After prolonged negative coverage in the press, the FBI changed the name of its system from "Carnivore" to "DCS1000." DCS is reported to stand for "Digital Collection System"; the system has the same functions as before. The Associated Press reported in mid-January 2005 that the FBI essentially abandoned the use of Carnivore in 2001, in favor of commercially available software, such as NarusInsight.

The Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division,[64] is located in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Organized beginning in 1991, the office opened in 1995 as the youngest agency division. The complex is the length of three football fields. It provides a main repository for information in various data systems. Under the roof of the CJIS are the programs for the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR), Fingerprint Identification, Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), NCIC 2000, and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Many state and local agencies use these data systems as a source for their own investigations and contribute to the database using secure communications. FBI provides these tools of sophisticated identification and information services to local, state, federal, and international law enforcement agencies.

Personnel

As of December 31, 2009, the FBI had a total of 33,852 employees. That includes 13,412 special agents and 20,420 support professionals, such as intelligence analysts, language specialists, scientists, information technology specialists, and other professionals.[66]

Hiring process

The FBI is near-impenetrable, with applicants intensely scrutinized and assessed over an extended period. To apply to become an FBI agent, one must be between the ages of 23 and 37. Due to the decision in Robert P. Isabella v. Department of State and Office of Personnel Management, 2008 M.S.P.B. 146, preference-eligible veterans may apply after age 37. In 2009, the Office of Personnel Management issued implementation guidance on the Isabella decision.[68] The applicant must also hold American citizenship, be of high moral character, have a clean record, and hold at least a four-year bachelor's degree. At least three years of professional work experience prior to application is also required. All FBI employees require a Top Secret (TS) security clearance, and in many instances, employees need a TS/SCI (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information) clearance.[69] To obtain a security clearance, all potential FBI personnel must pass a series of Single Scope Background Investigations (SSBI), which are conducted by the Office of Personnel Management.[70] Special Agents candidates also have to pass a Physical Fitness Test (PFT), which includes a 300-meter run, one-minute sit-ups, maximum push-ups, and a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) run. Personnel must pass a polygraph test with questions including possible drug use.[71] Applicants who fail polygraphs may not gain employment with the FBI.[72]

BOI and FBI directors

FBI Directors are appointed by the President of the United States. They must be confirmed by the United States Senate and serve a term of office of five years, with a maximum of ten years, if reappointed, unless they resign or are fired by the President before their term ends. J. Edgar Hoover, appointed by Calvin Coolidge in 1924, was by far the longest-serving director, serving until his death in 1972. In 1968, Congress passed legislation as part of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act Pub.L. 90–351, June 19, 1968, 82 Stat.197 that specified a 10-year limit, a maximum of two 5-year terms, for future FBI Directors, as well as requiring Senate confirmation of appointees. As the incumbent, this legislation did not apply to Hoover, only to his successors. The current FBI Director is James B. Comey, who was appointed in 2013 by Barack Obama.

The FBI director is responsible for the day-to-day operations at the FBI. Along with his deputies, the director makes sure cases and operations are handled correctly. The director also is in charge of making sure the leadership in any one of the FBI field offices is manned with qualified agents. Before the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the FBI director would directly brief the President of the United States on any issues that arise from within the FBI. Since then, the director now reports to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who in turn reports to the President.

Weapons

An FBI special agent is issued a GlockModel 22 pistol or a Glock 23 in .40 S&W caliber. If they fail their first qualification, they are issued either a Glock 17 or Glock 19, to aid in their next qualification. In May 1997, the FBI officially adopted the Glock .40 S&W pistol for general agent use and first issued it to New Agent Class 98-1 in October 1997. At present, the Model 23 "FG&R" (finger groove and rail) is the issue sidearm.[73] New agents are issued firearms, on which they must qualify, on successful completion of their training at the FBI Academy. The Glock 26 in 9×19mm Parabellum, and Glock Models 23 and 27 in .40 S&W caliber are authorized as secondary weapons. Special agents are authorized to purchase and qualify with the Glock Model 21 in .45 ACP. Special agents of the FBI HRT (Hostage Rescue Team), and regional SWAT teams are issued the Springfield Professional Model 1911A1 .45 ACP pistol (see FBI Special Weapons and Tactics Teams).

Crime statistics

In the 1920s, the FBI began issuing crime reports by gathering numbers from local police departments.[77] Due to limitations of this system found during the 1960s and 1970s—victims often simply did not report crimes to the police in the first place—the Department of Justice developed an alternate method of tallying crime, the victimization survey.[77]

Uniform Crime Reports

The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) compile data from over 17,000 law enforcement agencies across the country. They provide detailed data regarding the volume of crimes to include arrest, clearance (or closing a case), and law enforcement officer information. The UCR focuses its data collection on violent crimes, hate crimes, and property crimes.[76] Created in the 1920s, the UCR system has not proven to be as uniform as its name implies. The UCR data only reflect the most serious offense in the case of connected crimes and has a very restrictive definition of rape. Since about 93% of the data submitted to the FBI is in this format, the UCR stands out as the publication of choice as most states require law enforcement agencies to submit this data.

Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report for 2006 was released on June 4, 2006. The report shows violent crime offenses rose 1.3%, but the number of property crime offenses decreased 2.9% compared to 2005.[78]

National Incident Based Reporting System

The National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) crime statistics system aims to address limitations inherent in UCR data. The system is used by law enforcement agencies in the United States for collecting and reporting data on crimes. Local, state, and federal agencies generate NIBRS data from their records management systems. Data is collected on every incident and arrest in the Group A offense category. The Group A offenses are 46 specific crimes grouped in 22 offense categories. Specific facts about these offenses are gathered and reported in the NIBRS system. In addition to the Group A offenses, eleven Group B offenses are reported with only the arrest information. The NIBRS system is in greater detail than the summary-based UCR system. As of 2004, 5,271 law enforcement agencies submitted NIBRS data. That amount represents 20% of the United States population and 16% of the crime statistics data collected by the FBI.

Controversies

Throughout its history, the bureau has been the subject of a number of controversial cases, both at home and abroad.

Files on US citizens

The FBI has maintained files on numerous people, including celebrities such as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, John Denver, John Lennon, Jane Fonda, Groucho Marx, Charlie Chaplin, MC5, Lou Costello, Sonny Bono, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, and Mickey Mantle The files were collected for various reasons. Some of the subjects were investigated for alleged ties to the communist party (Charlie Chaplin and Groucho Marx), or in connection with antiwar activities during the Vietnam War (John Denver, John Lennon, and Jane Fonda). Numerous celebrity files concern threats or extortion attempts against them (Sonny Bono, John Denver, John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Groucho Marx, and Frank Sinatra).[79] The FBI also profiled Jack the Ripper in 1988 but his identity still remains unproven today.[80]Howard Zinn said in his Federal Bureau of Intimidation, "if I found that the FBI did not have any dossier on me, it would have been tremendously embarrassing and I wouldn't have been able to face my friends."[81]

Covert operations on political groups

The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971.[82] COINTELPRO tactics are still used to this day, and have been alleged to include discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination.[83][84][85] The FBI's stated motivation was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order."[86]

Black Panthers

The Bureau was also active during the Black Panther era.[when?]Accuracy in Media (AIM) reports that "Within one year of the formation of the Black Panther Party, the FBI established a special counter-intelligence program called COINTELPRO, to neutralize political dissidents."[90][91]

In the 2000s, researchers got files released by the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act revealing that the San Juan FBI office had coordinated with FBI offices in New York, Chicago and other cities, in a decades-long surveillance of Albizu Campos and Puerto Ricans who had contact or communication with him. The documents available are as recent as 1965.[93][94]

Activities in Latin America

From the 1950s to the 1980s, the governments of many Latin American and Caribbean countries were infiltrated by the FBI resulting in disruption of the political process in those countries.[95]

Internal investigations of shootings

During the period from 1993 to 2011, FBI agents shot 150 people. Seventy of these people died, the others were wounded. The FBI conducted internal investigations of all the shootings. All have been found to be justified.

During the period from 2011 to the present, all shootings by FBI agents have been found to be justified by internal investigation.

In some cases, the agency agreed to pay large amounts, sometimes over a million dollars after shooting innocent people. Samuel Walker, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha said these figures were "suspiciously low."[96]

The Whitey Bulger case

Another notorious case was that of Whitey Bulger who dealt in organized crime.[97][98][99] Beginning in 1975, Bulger served as an informant for the FBI.[100] As a result, the Bureau largely ignored his organization in exchange for information about the inner workings of the Italian American Patriarca crime family.[101][102][103] Beginning in 1997, the New England media exposed criminal actions by federal, state, and local law enforcement officials tied to Bulger. The revelation caused great embarrassment to the FBI.[104][105][106] On December 23, 1994, after being tipped off by his former FBI handler about a pending indictment under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, Bulger fled Boston and went into hiding. For 16 years, he remained at large. For 12 of those years, Bulger was prominently listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.[107]

In 2002, Special Agent John J Connolly was convicted of federal racketeering charges for helping Bulger avoid arrest. In 2008, Special Agent Connolly completed his term on the federal charges and was transferred to Florida where he was convicted of helping plan the murder of John B Callahan, a Bulger rival. In 2014, that conviction was overturned on a technicality. Connolly was the agent leading the investigation of Bulger.[116]

Robert Hanssen

On 20 February 2001, the bureau announced that a special agent, Robert Hanssen had been arrested for spying for the Soviet Union then Russia beginning in 1979. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment.[117]

Death of Filiberto Ojeda Rios

In 2005, fugitive Puerto Rican Nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos died in a gun battle with FBI agents in 2005 in what some charged was an assassination. Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá criticized the FBI assault as "improper" and "highly irregular" and demanded to know why his government was not informed of it.[118] The FBI refused to release information beyond the official press release, citing security and agent privacy issues. The Puerto Rico Justice Department filed suit in federal court against the FBI and the US Attorney General, demanding information crucial to the Commonwealth's own investigation of the incident. The case was dismissed by the U.S Supreme Court.[119] Ojeda Rios' funeral was attended by a long list of dignitaries, including the highest authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Puerto Rico, Archbishop Roberto Octavio González Nieves, ex-Governor Rafael Hernández Colón, and numerous other personalities.[120]

In the aftermath of his death, the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization approved a draft resolution urging a "probe of [the] pro-independence killing, human rights abuses", after "Petitioner after petitioner condemned the assassination of Mr. Ojeda Rios by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)".[121]

Image improvement via Wikipedia

In August 2007 Virgil Griffith, a Caltech computation and neural-systems graduate student, created a searchable database that linked changes made by anonymous Wikipedia editors to companies and organizations from which the changes were made. The database cross-referenced logs of Wikipedia edits with publicly available records pertaining to the internet IP addresses edits were made from.[122] Griffith was motivated by the edits from the United States Congress,[123][124][125][126] and wanted to see if others were similarly promoting themselves. The tool was designed to detect conflict of interest edits.[127] Among his findings was that FBI computers were used to edit the FBI article in Wikipedia.[128] Although the edits correlated with known FBI IP addresses, there was no proof that the changes actually came from a member or employee of the FBI, only that someone who had access to their network had edited the FBI article in Wikipedia.[124] Wikipedia spokespersons received Griffith's "WikiScanner" positively, noting that it helped prevent conflicts of interest from influencing articles[128] as well as increasing transparency[124][129] and mitigating attempts to remove or distort relevant facts.[130]

Botched raid

On January 26, 2012, an FBI team forcefully entered the Fitchburg, Massachusetts apartment of a woman using a chain saw to break through the door. They were at the wrong address. The agency apologized and agreed to pay for the damages they caused.[131]

Media portrayal

The FBI has been frequently depicted in popular media since the 1930s. The bureau has participated to varying degrees, which has ranged from direct involvement in the creative process of film or TV series development, to providing consultation on operations and closed cases.[132]

^Bonaparte, Charles Joseph. "Annual Report of the Attorney General of the United States, 1908, p.7". Historical Documents from the Bureau's Founding. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved 14 August 2012. In my last annual report I called attention to the fact that this department was obliged to call upon the Treasury Department for detective service, and had, in fact, no permanent executive force directly under its orders. Through the prohibition of its further use of the Secret Service force, contained in the Sundry Civil Appropriation Act, approved May 27, 1908, it became necessary for the department to organize a small force of special agents of its own. Although such action was involuntary on the part of this department, the consequences of the innovation have been, on the whole, moderately satisfactory. The Special Agents, placed as they are under the direct orders of the Chief Examiner, who receives from them daily reports and summarizes these each day to the Attorney General, are directly controlled by this department, and the Attorney General knows or ought to know, at all times what they are doing and at what cost.

^FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose. M. Wesley Swearingen. Boston. South End Press. 1995. Special Agent Gregg York: "We expected about twenty Panthers to be in the apartment when the police raided the place. Only two of those black nigger fuckers were killed, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark."